No Moment Was Made to Last
by Dreamer In Silico
Summary: F!Surana/Morrigan. Aeris Surana and Morrigan were close. Neither was comfortable putting a word to just how close. A six-part tale of their relationship through Origins.


_A/N: This was written as a gift for spectreromanoff, as part of the 2014 Dragon Age Holiday Cheer event. I am slowly, slowly synchronizing my FFnet works with my AO3 ones (or at least, the non-explicit fics). For the exhaustive list of my fanfiction, as there is a LOT more of it than exists on this site, see my profile._

* * *

 **No Moment Was Made to Last**

 **by Dreamer In Silico**

* * *

The apostate sorceress had frightened her, at first.

That fear was not as Alistair's sullen distrust, which itched and grated like sawdust escaped from a pallet into the bedsheets, but a live, fluttering thing that cautioned against Aeris Surana's immediate instinct to defer to the proud human woman. It was awe warring with a wariness born of being surrounded by strangers, nearly all seeming to demand her trust, her service, or both.

But Morrigan had not demanded any of those things, and that had made it hard _not_ to trust her, which unsettled Aeris all the more.

Then the old woman who laid claim to the name of a legend had cast her unwilling daughter into the world with the pair of fledgeling Grey Wardens, and Aeris had seen that not even a Witch of the Wilds was granted all the freedom she could reach for. Fearful awe had shifted in that moment to a fascination that gilded an unlooked-for, but ironclad sense of kinship that she both wanted and feared to express.

"Did you grow up at that one place in the Wilds, where Flemeth lives?" Aeris had asked quietly one evening, after the two mages had already been sorting fresh-cut herbs in silence for ten minutes.

Yellow, predatory eyes flashed up at the Warden's own peridot green, and Aeris bit her lower lip, realizing belatedly that this might not sound like the most earnest line of questioning in light of Alistair's choice of retaliatory topic in his verbal duel with Morrigan earlier in the day.

"Of what significance do you find it if I was raised in one patch of the Wilds or another?" the other woman asked in acerbic rejoinder, fingers still methodically sorting cut stems and stripping the leaves where necessary. "I have been given to understand that they all look very much the same to a town-dweller."

Aeris glanced down automatically, breaking the crackling gaze, her own ink-whorled, olive-skinned fingers stilling at their task as she made herself look back up and answer simply, "They might, honestly. But I know they don't to you. That's... why I'm interested."

Whatever Morrigan had been expecting in answer, that clearly had not been it, and Aeris felt a whisper of almost guiltily amused satisfaction at having successfully side-stepped expectation. The human did not acknowledge her own surprise verbally, but the irritation in her severe features faded, leaving something more akin to faint disgruntlement, and she nodded, very slightly. "We... moved about a great deal, in fact," she answered more tolerantly after a moment, sharp eyes diverting back to the task her hands had automatically continued. "At times 'twas to elude the interest of townsfolk or templars who ventured too close to wherever we lived at the time. On other occasions, Mother offered no explanation; she simply informed me that we were relocating, and then we did so."

"Did you have a favorite place, or sort of place?" Aeris asked, slowly taking up her work once more, words carrying nothing but earnest curiosity.

The silence stretched in the wake of the question for long enough that the elven Warden began to think the other woman would not answer, but Morrigan did speak, eventually. "I... suppose that I did. I preferred sites within easy flying distance to a crossroads or a settlement. Spying on townsfolk gave me little end of amusement. But we did not ever remain in such places very long. Why do you take such fascination in my mother's traveling habits?"

 _Her mother's_ , Aeris noted. _Not hers_.

"My elder sister and I were taken to the Circle when I was three. Traveling with Duncan to Ostagar was... the first time I'd ever been beyond those walls, since then."

Morrigan might have shuddered, or perhaps it was merely a trick of the flickering firelight shadows.

"So... I'm just perhaps a bit too curious what it's like to grow up outside. I apologize if I'm prying," she finished, shrugging with discomfort.

To Aeris's surprise, Morrigan actually chuckled, the sound low and dry as she shook her head slowly. "I do not take offense at the questions. But if 'twas a tale representative of a more typical existence you were seeking, I am likely among the very _worst_ to ask."

The Warden's angular face split into a sudden, wry grin, and she bit her lip and nodded, glancing back down at their herbs. "I... That's... definitely a fair point. Still interesting, though."

"As you say," Morrigan murmured. Her tone was dubious, but a smirk still lingered at the corner of her lips.

…

"I am... uncertain that I can preserve the integrity of the design," Morrigan said, looking down with a near-scowl at her reckless companion's hand where it sat carefully cradled, palm-up, in the human mage's own. A deep, freely-bleeding gash interrupted the intricate lines of the tattoo that traced in spirals and graceful arcs across the skin of the Warden's palm where the woman had grasped a darkspawn's blade bare-handed to channel electricity directly into the assailant's body.

The darkspawn had died, sure enough, but Aeris had been sheet-faced with blood loss by the time the skirmish had ended. And of course the templar oaf and the Orlesian girl had both thought the maneuver _heroic_ and _daring_ rather than foolishly, painfully unnecessary.

"Do whatever you need to. I can redo the whole design if I must. But thank you in advance for trying," Aeris gritted out, her eyes remaining closed. She had squeezed them shut as she'd given the far more capable healer her hand, clearly unsettled by the sight now that the adrenaline of the fight was fading. Morrigan scarcely blamed her for that... though her sympathy only went so far. Lightning had _range_ , and Aeris should have been making use of that.

With a nod of acquiescence that the Warden would not see, Morrigan carefully called forth a stream of power, slowly but steadily cleansing and re-knitting the mangled flesh. The result was more successful at maintaining the tattoo than Morrigan had feared it might be, but a thin line of completely new skin nonetheless remained to slice across the whorls of ink, giving the appearance of a scar, though Morrigan's healing work had not been sloppy enough to leave true scars since she had been a half-pint girl. "'Tis complete," she informed Aeris, almost absentmindedly tracing the pad of her thumb along the marred design.

There was something unsettling in the Warden's face when her eyes opened to meet Morrigan's, that prodded the witch to hastily cease the contact and let her own unmarked, long-fingered hands fall back into her lap.

"That's not nearly as bad as I'd worried about," the Warden observed with a small smile. "...And of course it feels worlds better, too. Thank you, Morrigan."

"You... are most welcome," the witch replied, awkwardly and somewhat peevishly suppressing her instinct to point out that it was to her own benefit on a purely functional level to assist the group by healing its wounds, and she hardly required thanks.

The last time she had said something like that, Aeris had taken rather impressive exception to it. Morrigan still didn't much understand why (and understood why the woman's displeasure affected her as it did rather less than that).

"May I... inquire, perhaps, as to the nature of these designs?" she asked almost hastily a moment later, as she realized that it was perhaps the most natural opportunity she would find to make such an inquiry.

Aeris's smile stretched into something Morrigan had trouble interpreting – was she surprised? Pleased? _Shy?_ Perhaps all of those, or none of them.

No, she was definitely pleased. That much, the witch knew, at least.

"Oh! Of course. It's something... some of us did, in the Circle."

Morrigan could not completely suppress her look of disquiet, and her stomach clenched in a strange fashion as Aeris's expression fell. "Something your jailors put on you?"

"No!" The elven mage's delicate brows drew together in a fierce frown, and she shook her head vehemently. "They only barely tolerated it, in fact. A sympathetic Senior had to explain how it was a good lesson on a lot of different things all at once – symbology, discipline, healing – to get the Knight-Commander not to forbid it."

That was... well, not _worse_ , by Morrigan's standards, but it certainly didn't sound good, either.

"One of the older apprentices – she was..." Something indefinable flitted across the Warden's face, gone as quickly as a cloud that drifts ever so briefly across the sun. "... the same age as my sister, when she was taken. One of her parents was Dalish, and she told a lot of us about the _vallaslin_ they ink onto their faces to mark adulthood."

Morrigan nodded her understanding of that practice, still skeptical, but quiet as the other woman continued.

"A few of us – elves, mostly, but a few of the human apprentices, too – decided to start our own tradition kind of like that. It would be blasphemy to actually take _vallaslin_ without a Keeper's blessing, but we came up with our own symbols to take to commemorate things we learn or do or love, and they go on our hands, around our wrists, and even climb up our arms, sometimes." Aeris's frown eased a bit as she spoke, lips turning up instead in a wryly bitter smirk. "We started on just our fingers and palms, for a long time, to keep it to ourselves. It took them months to notice that a handful of us seemed to be getting into fights with inkpens on the daily."

The Warden held out both hands, now, palms up and forearms bare for Morrigan's curious inspection. Though she did not touch Aeris's inked skin again, her eyes traced intently along the intricate lines of the nested and linked designs. Solid bands of varied widths circumscribed two fingers, while a delicate, simple line of dots embellished the length of one middle finger; dizzying spirals wound their way across her palms and perhaps an inch or two up the insides of her wrists. The inner part of her left forearm bore a bold, almost violent stroke that swept halfway to her elbow. All the lines were dark brown, save for a spiked ring in deep, stormy blue on the very center of each palm.

"There are bits for each different school I gained competency in, with detail added for mastery," Aeris explained in a murmur as Morrigan continued to take in the sight in silence. "Rings for tests passed. Other pieces for a few friends and mentors who helped me learn something important. One little spot for passing my Harrowing." She snorted softly. "We didn't want to give that the same honor the Seniors try to."

"...A worthy sentiment," Morrigan replied, equally quiet, with an approving glance upward. "What is the significance of the large mark on your left arm?"

She could almost feel the sudden, charged tension in the air, even before the Warden answered. "That's the only mark that's ever going there. It's for my sister," she said, all humor completely fled from her voice, leaving it hard and brittle and chilly in a way that did not suit her. "She... was judged 'unfit to be Harrowed,' and they made her Tranquil."

Morrigan drew in a sharp breath, letting it out in a hiss as she met the other woman's eyes. "Your Circle is _barbaric_." It was all she could think of to say, and she knew it was the wrong thing a split second after she'd spoken.

But the flash of anger she saw on Aeris's face faded back into a stiff nod of agreement, and her rebuke was mild, if intent. "If it was _my_ Circle, I'd have razed it to the ground a long, long time ago."

"I..." Morrigan swallowed tightly. "Forgive me. I find that quite easy to believe." Aeris only nodded, palms still extended, and the human mage cast about for a way to shift the conversation back toward kinder winds. "What are the colored circles?" she asked, reaching out at last to rest the tips of her first two fingers lightly upon the marks in question.

"Lightning," Aeris answered after a beat, with a chuckle that was almost a sigh, glancing down at their hands. "It's my favorite, if you hadn't already noticed."

The Warden's recklessness that day aside, she _did_ tend to make rather effective, and at times, impressively creative use of that particular part of elemental magic. "I... had, indeed," she murmured, faint smirk returning as she drew her hands back.

Aeris's fingers curled, just slightly, as Morrigan's retreated, as if in involuntary attempt to prevent that departure.

…

"Morrigan, she turned into a dragon. A _dragon!_ " Aeris paced a few steps back and forth in front of the dying fire, gesticulating agitatedly. The scent of sulfur and scorched wool was all about her – in the dark hair that had escaped her braid to lie messily, stickily against her face, in her cloak and her shirt, and even seemingly in her very skin.

Yellow eyes stared back at her, sharp as always, but Morrigan's arms were crossed over her chest defensively, and Aeris thought she saw – or was she simply wishing it there? - a hint of conflict in the other woman's gaze.

"I warned you that Flemeth was exceptionally powerful. 'Twas clearly not hyperbole, but 'tis just as clear that you proved equal to the challenge she posed."

Aeris gave her a long, hard look, her own arms stilling to rest elegant-fingered hands on her hips. Then she sighed, a quiet rush of breath, and broke the eyelock with a shake of her head. Cryptic, Morrigan could be, but an omission of that magnitude went beyond that to the point of being egregiously counterproductive. "You didn't know, did you?"

The look Morrigan gave her confirmed the guess, as well as the secondary, unspoken assumption that the witch would not have admitted that of her own accord. "I have suspected a great many things about her, but... no. I did not. I would have informed you."

There was a hint of reproach in this last, and Aeris bowed her head in a nod that held an answering note of contrition. "What about you, then?" she asked after a moment's pause, one eyebrow lifting. "Are you actually human, or... or something else?"

"As best I have ever been able to determine – and that is not necessarily well, for as you see my mother has always been rather less than forthcoming about her own nature – I am but a human mage. A potent one, certainly, but no more than that." Morrigan paused, eyes sliding away from Aeris to fix upon the smoldering coals of the second campfire as she sank down onto a nearby stone, limbs tense and her shoulders hunching very slightly forward as if to brace against a chill. "Perhaps Flemeth did not even bear me herself, though I can think of little reason for her to name me her natural daughter if in fact I am not."

At Morrigan's shift in tone, Aeris's frustration and any dregs of anger that had persisted all bled away, leaving her simply very tired and increasingly concerned. Morrigan being the sort of person she was, it was disturbingly easy to forget that their away party had returned with news that they had successfully slain her _mother_. Whether or not that relationship was one of birth, it could not have been as insignificant as she would obviously prefer the group to believe.

Taking a deep breath and moving to sit nearby, Aeris ventured, "Will you... miss her at all, do you think?"

That earned her a flashing knife of a glance, there and gone like a spark jumping from the campfire. "I shall remain annoyed at the number of secrets she kept and which will now stand even smaller chance of being revealed. But 'twas a necessary thing, and I see no reason to dwell upon it. You have my thanks for the risk you undertook to assist me on the matter."

Aeris's lips tilted upward, faintly, wryly, and she nodded. "I... hope you know I'd have gone anyway, even if we'd known what she could do. That risk... couldn't stand." _I couldn't stand taking it. Not with your freedom_.

Morrigan's eyes met hers again, this time nearly opaque in their expression, but she nodded, very slightly. "I would not wish to presume. But truly I... did not doubt it. You."

The moment stretched like an overdrawn bowstring between them, until Aeris could barely breathe. But the mention of secrets had reminded her, and the tightness eased as she rubbed at her nose with self-directed exasperation. "Blast it, I'd almost forgotten," she muttered, casting about for the oilskin napsack she had originally carried to Morrigan's campfire. Locating it, Aeris carefully withdrew a thick volume bound in ancient leather and extended it toward the other mage. "I was able to find her grimoire, as you'd asked. I hope it helps, at least a bit."

Morrigan's eyes widened, and she blinked at the book for a moment before taking it in near-reverent fingers. "...And many more thanks are owed for this, I believe," she murmured, eyes sweeping the cover of the grimoire, then back up to Aeris's face. "I was uncertain 'twould be recoverable."

"I try to keep my promises, even when they're a bit overambitious," the Warden said with a soft, tired chuckle as she rose once more, shouldering the now-empty bag. "And here's another one," she added seriously. "If you end up wanting to talk about this – _any_ of this – I'm ready and willing. But I'm not going to push it otherwise, I don't think. Alright?"

The Witch of the Wilds looked back up at her from the firelit leather book cover to catch Aeris's gaze, and at that moment, the Warden was certain there was something far warmer in those predatory depths.

…

The entire world was rock.

Rock, and the damp chill of the deep underground, though it was occasionally cut by startling currents of sulfurous heat that arose from the even deeper chasms.

Rock, and the pervasive, coppery smell of blood and minerals leeched from the stone by trickles of water that came from nowhere and everywhere.

Rock, and the constant strain of vigilance for attack by everything from darkspawn to giant spiders.

It had taken Morrigan very little time to decide that she _despised_ the Deep Roads.

Empathy was not a thing that came naturally to her, but she also found that she could not help but imagine just how much more difficult it must be for the Grey Wardens, to be so enclosed and _constantly_ feel the darkspawn to some degree. Aeris's nightmares had become visibly, drastically worse since the second sleep period (there was no concept of 'days' in this forsaken place) out of Orzammar, and she began regularly picking up second watch shifts until Morrigan had threatened to drug her... and it was a sad commentary on the entire state of affairs that the teeth of that threat was not the desire to avoid an alchemical escape so much as the desire to conserve their very limited supply of herbs.

Alistair had reacted to the stress by projecting even more forced bravado and attempted humor than usual; Aeris, by descending into a watchful near-silence, save for terse instructions given to their small party. And Morrigan, who had never before in her life regretted a _lack_ of chatter, of all things, was increasingly concerned and disturbed by that silence.

And then chill had given way to a constant, fetid heat, and sleeping nightmares, to waking ones.

It had been a great good fortune, to find the tiny spring as they had fled the darkest depths, a few hours before, but no water, either trickle or deluge, would wash out the imprint of _memory_ left by their encounter with the Broodmother. Morrigan scarcely cared, in truth, that Aeris had rejected her advice in the matter of Branka; they were alive, and they were moving back toward the surface... and eventually, Morrigan knew, she would be glad for those things. Now, however, it was all she could do to keep invasive thoughts at bay.

"I'm sorry," Aeris murmured over her waterskin, much later, after they had made what passed for a camp in the Deep Roads. It was the first she'd spoken in hours, and the words caught Morrigan off-guard.

The witch gave the Warden a questioning frown, dry lips parting to speak, but no answer emerging.

"For... back there. At the Forge. For yelling."

Morrigan blinked slowly at her, the memory sluggish to process and connect to what Aeris was saying. Aeris had indeed yelled at her, she supposed. She recalled being angry, if she thought about it. Mostly, though, she recalled being afraid that the mad dwarven smith and her enslaved, highly magic-resistant golems would break through their defenses and crush the exhaustion-hazed, already mana-depleted elf who fought at her side.

"'Tis... of little consequence," she answered finally, hoarsely, giving Aeris a sidelong glance and watching the firelight flicker across the other's sharp features. "The result of your choice was favorable."

"Still. I wish I hadn't."

Aeris was at times an unfathomably strange creature, yet this sort of thing no longer surprised Morrigan as it used to. She nodded slowly, accepting the apology without further rebuttal, her eyes sliding back to the fire a moment later.

A shiver chased its way over her skin, and she bit back a snarl as she forced back another flash of memory. _The dwarf's snarl as she raised her notched blade and charged forward, shield braced to crash into Morrigan and interrupt the spell she was weaving. The surge in the Fade as Aeris's wall of force collided with the dwarf and arrested her charge long enough for Zevran to draw her attention elsewhere._

Then she jumped as an ink-marked hand suddenly closed in a gentle hold around her wrist, but the startlement subsided into another shudder as she could not bring herself to protest the blatant attempt at comfort. Instead, she lifted her other hand to cover Aeris's and squeeze, offering what she could give of that same comfort, in turn.

Whether it was minutes or hours later that Aeris rose to collect a bedroll and the two of them settled by the banked fire, wrapped in a blanket and each other, Morrigan could not have said.

And whether it was days or weeks later that they first camped under the stars once more, Morrigan was similarly uncertain, but that night, she made a quiet request and received, from reverent fingers, a small but intricate design at the base of her palm that mirrored a new one upon Aeris's own.

 _For you._

…

It hurt to agree, hurt to watch the set of Morrigan's shoulders as she turned away to make for Alistair's chambers.

There had been relief, of course, in the hope that Morrigan's proposal had offered, that they might all live to walk away from the battle to come, and have a future to look forward to. But what could that future be, other than bleak? Would it be worth this night, and the consequences to come after?

Strangely, the idea of what the child would be alarmed her very little. It was the thought of Morrigan's path that churned her stomach and left her pacing, cold, in front of her room's fireplace.

She should not have assumed, perhaps, that Morrigan would return that night. For all the intimacy between them over the past handful of months, the witch's habit of solitude was one that remained, and one Aeris respected.

Still. _Still_.

She passed the remainder of the time by arranging for a bath to be drawn in her chambers, the water still cold from the well, for mages had little need of hot stones or kettles for such things.

When the quiet knock came again, she let out a breath that she felt as though she'd been holding the entire time, relief mixing with renewed trepidation in her chest as she moved to open the door. Morrigan entered and nodded silently, her bearing still stoic, but to Aeris's eyes, it carried an edge of awkward anxiety that she'd only recently begun to truly be able to recognize in the taciturn woman.

Aeris said nothing in return, and instead simply allowed the door to close before pulling Morrigan into a careful embrace. The witch's shoulders stiffened briefly, but relaxed a heartbeat later, and tentative arms came up to wrap around Aeris's slender waist.

"There's a bath, if you want," Aeris murmured at length, when they had released one another. "I wasn't sure, but..."

"My thanks," Morrigan cut off the explanation with the sighed words and a slight nod. "'Tis a welcome thought." She turned toward the inner chamber, but hesitated visibly, swallowing as she turned back and added, "I... do not wish to be alone, if you do not."

Aeris knew, by now, that the difficulty lay in the asking rather than in the sentiment itself, and that made the asking all the more potent. She smiled, full and warm, some of her own tension loosening a fraction more.

Later, they abandoned Aeris's rooms with their thick, stifling walls and tiny windows and made their way up, past incredulous guards to the roof of one of the watchtowers. Neither had been comfortable at the idea of sleeping beneath stone once more; instead they laid their bedding out under the star-strewn sky and drank in the sight of it together for long hours before finally drifting off, Morrigan on her side and Aeris nestled warmly against her back, one arm thrown over her body.

…

The Archdemon lay dead, and both Wardens lived. Flemeth's designs had served one purpose, at the least, and the other... Morrigan did not wish to think on it, not then. It was hard enough to leave.

She had meant to take flight as soon as the battle had ended and she had assured herself of Aeris's safety, just vanish into the twilight without a word. It might have been easier that way – hypothetically, at least, since she had not been able to bring herself to do so.

Instead she waited alone on the battlements, toying pensively with the carven ring she wore, though it currently told her only what she already knew. Aeris was nearby across the Fort Drakon rooftop, giving orders to their allies for completing the darkspawn rout. Let the others think Morrigan aloof and uncaring all they wished, so long as a single Grey Warden mage did not.

"Morrigan," came Aeris's voice after a time, hoarse from yelling. Her green eyes, when Morrigan turned to meet them, were questioning.

"Aeris," she acknowledged. "I did not wish to depart without... informing you."

The small, sad smirk that tugged at the Warden's lips said that she knew what Morrigan had actually meant. "Thank you. I can't...?"

"No." The word held an edge of sharpness, but it was softened by the step Morrigan took forward to close the distance and take her hands. Aeris's fingers brushed against the still-new design on Morrigan's palm.

"Alright," she whispered.

Morrigan held her eyes as well as her hands for a long moment, finding nothing left to say. Finally, she leaned down, slowly but without hesitation, and caught Aeris's lips with her own.

The kiss was both long and painfully, inadequately short, and the familiar freedom of wind through her feathers as she spiraled aloft at last, far more bitter than sweet.

* * *

 _A note on the title:_

 _From "Nova" by VNV Nation - "Oh my heart / in this universe so vast / no moment was made to last / so light the fire in me"_


End file.
